Factors Determining the Adoption of Pruning and Bagging by Major Mango Producers in the Philippines

A total of 332 mango growers and contractors were interviewed about their attitude towards pruning and bagging. Grouped as adopters and non-adopters, the respondents were categorized as to age, experience in mango production, educational attainment, household income, and membership to organization. These characteristics along with economic, physical, technological and institutional factors were analyzed using probit analysis to determine their influence on the probability of adopting the technologies.

            Trees grown in Luzon and Visayas were older than those in Mindanao, hence the negative effect on adoption of pruning and bagging. With regard to pruning the coefficient for number of trees grown was positive, indicative that respondents with a higher number of trees had a higher probability of adopting pruning.

            Seven variables were found to have significant influence on the probability to adopt bagging among all respondents. The presence of technical assistance was the most significant predictor. In areas where technical assistance could not be adequately provided mango growers would remain ambivalent on adopting the bagging technology. The rate of adoption was higher in Visayas and Mindanao than in Luzon. A separate function for Luzon showed that the age and education of the respondents were negative and positive, respectively, contrary to the result of the adoption function for all respondents. Two other important determinants were household income and cost of chemical control. The coefficients were positive, as expected a priori. Bagging is expensive, thus, producers with more income have higher probability of adoption. Adopting will further be enhanced if the price of chemical control will continue to increase in the local market. Thus, pricing mechanism that would make the cost of chemical control more expensive relative to the cost of bagging could be an important instrument to increase bagging adoption.

Keywords: pruning, bagging, mango, adoption, determinants of adoption, probit analysis

Corresponding author: E-mail: cast@kmitl.ac.th